November 22, 2010

In VDARE this week, I offer the President another policy suggestion that he won't hear from anybody else that would be politically feasible and good for himself, good for the Democrats, and good for the country.

44 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Terrific column. It documents a splendid example of unintended consequences / public choice theory / bootleggers and baptists. As time passes, I'm becoming more and more persuaded that progressives don't get this because, to them, it's the motive that matters. "If we mean well, then the law must be good!"

"If Gutierrez had to run in a district with substantial numbers of white and black voters, he wouldn’t (and couldn’t) be such an angry extremist on illegal immigration."

No, but probably a more effective advocate, as he would have the veneer of respectability. Then again, he probably couldn't win in such a district, either. His specially drawn district has also been drawn to exclude people who would make respectable statesmen.

Obama's not taking your advice. His presidency is all about redirecting massive sums of wealth to his leftist and minority friends. The stimulus was meant to preserve the jobs of left-leaning state government bureaucrats and the handouts those states give to minorities, as states who received federal stimulus aid were explicity barred from cutting welfare spending. The GM & Chrysler bailouts were designed to preserve union contracts at the expense of bondholders. And should I mention the Pigford fiasco?

The scarier part: if handing over hundreds of billions to minorities is what he's willing to do in plain sight, what is he doing behind the scenes?

Barack Obama's entire presidency is an African-style kleptocracy. He's enriching his own "clan" while in office, and the payoff for him will come after he leaves, via $10 million speaking fees, corparate boards (and accompanying options) and all the rest. You'll never see an ex-president get as rich as Obama will within 2 years of leaving office.

Democrats have been doing it for years, but they've never been so brazen about it. The irony is that Republicans could actually use descriptions like "African kleptocracy" to describe his reign - if Obama weren't black.

I don't care what the old Klingon proverb said: Nixon was always a liberal and an opportunist. He was as Chomsky said "the last liberal President".

The idea that Obama will do something out of character comes from Nixon's trip to China - but it wasn't a new direction for him at all. Nixon promoted Detente and rapprochement with China because he always believed in such stances. He was only an anti-communist when being an anti-communistic was good politics. When he became President he was no longer restrained to keep up appearances for an upcoming election and he indulged in his true beliefs.

We have seen this pattern quite often among Supreme Court justices. There are many ambitious jurists today who conceal their true beliefs for decades and obscure their "paper trail" fearing exposure before they have gotten their final appointment.

Obama himself is a good example of this phenomenon. The narrative of your own book shows just how careful Obama has been to hide his racial and political extremism.

Nixon believed in wage-price controls, environmental regulations, and affirmative action. He was only conservative in contrast to McGovern. He did not "mellow" or "cross the aisle". He merely dropped the facade.

Nixon had put himself through college playing poker. He was good at dissimulation.

So the idea that Obama will "pull a Nixon" and reverse his life long political and social stances in a fit of sudden statesmanship is a vacant hope. In fact, it's clear, you don't actually believe it. It is a fantasy - an entertaining and intriguing fantasy but fantasy nonetheless.

Obama is just what he seems - a weak willed, pampered nouvo-aristocrat. He is destined to become an object of derision like a an Edwardian fop. He doesn't have the kind of capacity for a heroic-historic reversal that you suggest.

He apparently couldn't play the piano before, and now plays like Liszt. The Discovery Channel wants to do a piece on him. I admit there could be an element of fakery here, and he is a musician looking for some free pub, but physicians at the Mayo clinic done a scan on his brain (shown in video) and it does show some bruising (hit his head in a swimming pool).

I was reminded of that Wolfian creation (and obviously a stand-in for himself), Professer Starling, in "I Am Charlotte Simmons", who went over experiments that turned off/on the aggressive portions of charging bulls' brains.

Scary thought: In the future, when some of the "savant" areas of the brain or known, will the stage parents who struggle to get their kids into competitive kindergartens now pay under-the-table for surgeons to attempt to make their little tots geniuses in area A or B?

Obama reminds me of OJ Simpson in that both have been adept in manipulating naive whites to get what they want. The superficial charm of both sociopaths brought out the mass of white enablers to carry their water for them, year after year. Both probably laugh up their sleeves at how endlessly gullible whites are. The concept of doing something "good" for it's own sake, or for the country, would be an alien, bizarre concept for either one of these fellows.

You're right, except that Obama isn't thick skinned enough to take the flack from black politicians who are the recipients of this deal. The last thing Obama wants is to be called the guy who betrayed blacks. If he redistricted, the number of blacks in congress would plummet, and the ire would rise. We are stuck with this situation for now.

Nixon promoted Detente and rapprochement with China because he always believed in such stances. He was only an anti-communist when being an anti-communistic was good politics. When he became President he was no longer restrained to keep up appearances for an upcoming election and he indulged in his true beliefs.

So when Nixon was secretly carpet-bombing Communist Cambodia with more force than we bombed genuine enemies in WWII like Germany and Japan, that was him indulging in his true inner Communist?

Nixon went to China because NIXON WAS A RIGHT-WINGER. He wanted to promote capitalism. He was successful in his venture. Get over it.

"I don't care what the old Klingon proverb said: Nixon was always a liberal and an opportunist. He was as Chomsky said 'the last liberal President'."

Nixon was not a liberal. He was a conservative who saw the writing on the wall and felt he had to go with the flow in order to get anything done. When he was president, nearly ALL THE SMART PEOPLE, TOP MANAGERIAL OR INTELECTUAL TALENTS, AND BIGTIME POWER BROKERS were liberals. It seemed the changes of the 60s were irreversible and as though the commies were winning. America in the late 60s and early 70s was a very different place than in the 1950s, and if Nixon could have gotten things his way, he would not have allowed the 60s to happen. But the 60s happened, and he had to deal with it--just like Ed Sullivan didn't like rock music but had to play hip in order to stay relevant on the air. Nixon figured that the only viable political solution was to appropriate or steal the thunder from the liberals(while at the same time pulling the Southern Strategy). In a way, Nixon was playing it like Bismarck did in the 19th century. Bismarck was a true blue conservative and didn't like change BUT he saw that fundamental changes were irreversible in all facets of society and economy, so he had to 'make the best of it' by working with liberals and evenby making major concessions--while at the same time taking credit for the ideas he stole from the progressives.

Also, Nixon was a vain man(where he was very different from Reagan who didn't care so/as much about winning approval of the so-called best and the brighest), someone with conceit of being an intellectual, and so, even as he hated the East Coast Wasp and Jewish intellectuals, he wanted to be thought of them as an advanced thinker(as opposed to most caveman conservatives who were averse to all modern or advanced ideas. Nixon may have felt more comfortable in the company of guys like Pat Buchanan but he wanted the approval of people at the NY Times. He has a love/hate thing going with the East Coast Establishment, which was both tragic and farcical since the Establishment only hated and hated him.) Since Keynesianism was still the big thing in the late 60s and early 70s among ALL EDUCATED PEOPLE, Nixon believed that the only way he could win any kind of respect from the establishment was to adopt and impose some of its 'brightest' ideas. Even so, he stole the 'best ideas' from the liberals to empower the Right, just as Clinton tried to steal the 'best' ideas of the GOP.

Gerrymandering is one of the only decent things going on in american politics in the last few decades. Gerrymandering increases democracy. Democracy is a good thing.

Why does Gerrymandering increase democracy? Because Gerrymandering increases the unity of the voting districts. A more unified voting district can better unite and discover their common interest.

Let's do a little thought experiment here: Imagine a voting district comprised of only 2 people, both of them identical twins. One of them gets elected to go to congress and represent the people (actually person) in that voting district. Since the only other person in that district is his identical twin, how well can that congressman represent that district? Very well, I would think. Much better than the average congressperson. The electorate of his very small district is very united. And the interests of the electorate is very well defined.

Now increase the population of that district to eight people--all octuplets. Again, one gets elected to congress. How well can that congress person represent the electorate? Pretty darn well compared to most congressional districts, but not as well as when the district was comprised of only 2 twins. Now make the population of the district equal to 20 people, all from the same extended family. How well will the congressperson represent the electorate now? How about if the population is 100 people of the same race? How about 100 of five different races?

This is the primary principle of the american federalist system, as outlined by james madison, aka the father of the constitution, in the federalist papers. He and the other constitutional framers designed the american political districts to be as diverse and as full of factions as possible, the better to de-unify the electorate. They wanted the politicians to NOT represent the people. They wanted to prevent the majority from uniting. That is what Madison wrote.

Gerrymandering is a reversal of the principles of american federalism. I think Gerrymandering is great. More Gerrymandering will take america in the direction of the other western nations, all of which have parliamentarian democracies, not federalist pseudo-democracies.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical discussion....

1st. Jack Ryan ousted on a sex scandal thanks to a curious and irregular decision by an illinois judge.

2nd. A perfectly viable Republican candidate, Oberweis, is trashed by his own party, notably by Dennis Hastert.

Sibel Edmonds came out with some info. about Dennis, some of which is reprinted here:

Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information.

Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing and it wasn’t always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out – a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname “Denny boy.” It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

This law that $200 donations need not be disclosed makes perfect sense from a mafia perspective, since they can organize a lot of $200 donations to effectively become a dominant force in politics.

Instead of Oberweis, the Republicans throw the election by putting up Allan Keyes, using immigration and PC as a cover story. VDARE falls for it.

3rd. Some years later, Hillary Clinton's states decide to go from winne take all to proportional representation in the primary, another step in ensuring what was a foregone conclusion.

4th Obama somehow generates enough clout to become a presidential contender despite being a freshman senator with no voting record. The cover story is that a so-so speech he made at the Dem. convention catapulted him to the top.

5th A laughable Republican Candidate Field ensures Obama's victory. McCain nearly admits throwing the race. The cover story is again PC.

This is of course, the story of how the Manchurian Candidate was installed. And now the question becomes just what was Obama doing when he allegedly visited friends in war-torn Afghanistan in 1980?

2nd. Oberweis, a competitive candidate, is trashed by his own party, notably by the impossibly corrupt Dennis Hastert, in favor of Allan Keyes. PC is the cover story and the right falls for it.

3rd. A freshman senator somehow generates enough clout to become a viable presidential candidate. The cover story for the Left is that a so-so speech he made at the convention catapulted him. The cover story for the right is PC. The right falls for it again.

4th. Hillary's states in the Democratic primary somehow had all decided the previous year to opt for proportional rep. instead of winner-take-all for the first time. The right talks about how "lucky" Obama is.

5th. The Republican field emerges and it is pathetic. McCain admits (virtually) to throwing the race. PC is again the cover story and the right again falls for it.

This was the story of how the Manchurian Candidate was engineered into office. It's time to ask the Manchurian Candidate exactly why he claims that he visited war-ravaged Afghanistan in 1980 to visit friends and what he was doing there.

Moral of the stoy: No; not everyone drinks their own Kool-Aid. At the top, no one does.

Speaking of the liberal bigfoot Paul Krugman, I must be one of the few people in America who looks forward to reading both Sailer and Krugman columns on Sunday evenings.

I, too, look forward to reading Krugman's columns, but only out of malice. The poor man is having a total mental breakdown right before our eyes. It is the Cassandra Syndrome: He, alone, knows how to save global civilization from utter financial ruin and the resulting apocalyptic orgy of violence. But EVERYONE IS TOO STUPID TO LISTEN TO HIM!

Scary thought: In the future, when some of the "savant" areas of the brain or known, will the stage parents who struggle to get their kids into competitive kindergartens now pay under-the-table for surgeons to attempt to make their little tots geniuses in area A or B?

Dunno about that, but it would sure seem to put a crimp in putative leftie levelers' plans to bop kids across the head with ballpeen hammers. Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

Nixon does not easily fit into the Right/Left paradigms. He embraced the "Southern Strategy" but was a lifetime member of the NAACP. He bombed Cambodia but rapproched with China. He was a political animal who refused to allow ideology to get in the way of electoral success (it was he who brought working-class Democrats into the Republican fold well before Reagan).

Rapproachement with China was pretty much official Democratic policy by 1970. There may be some valid illustration of the "only Nixon could go to China" meme, but Nixon going to China isn't it.

Nixon believed in wage-price controls, environmental regulations, and affirmative action. He was only conservative in contrast to McGovern. He did not "mellow" or "cross the aisle". He merely dropped the facade.

Nixon, like all successful politicians, accepted the conventional wisdom of his time -- maybe he surrendered to the Zeitgeist with greater ardor than Reagan, but then Reagan never would have won if things hadn't moved in his direction so sharply between '76 and '80, and if he hadn't moved to meet them halfway.

Barack Obama's entire presidency is an African-style kleptocracy. He's enriching his own "clan" while in office, and the payoff for him will come after he leaves, via $10 million speaking fees, corparate boards (and accompanying options) and all the rest. You'll never see an ex-president get as rich as Obama will within 2 years of leaving office.

I don't get this at all. What is his clan? Aunt whatever-her-name-is? Kenyans? Black people? How is he enriching them?

As for what he will do after he's president, neither you nor I knows. If he enriches himself after leaving office, he won't be the first. Remember Reagan's speech in Japan? I suppose it's easier to forego such things if you're born rich.

You kids trying to analyze Nixon without having done any reading from the period are showing your intellectual laziness. You have to weigh various pieces of proof. See, it's a mosaic. For example, in Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail '72, Pat Buchanan, a conservative or "right winger" by any standard, tells Hunter Thompson, "you realize he isn't really a conservative, right?" He doesn't explain what he meant. It might have meant, "he's not really cracking down on the campuses." On the other hand, Nixon once said to another writer, "you can't talk to blacks," which shows him to have been eerily prescient. This explains his "support" for affirmative action. He may have been naive about just how slippery that slope was, but it doesn't detract from his understanding of blacks' intellectual limitations. And how does playing Mao off against the Soviets say anything one way or the other about his position on the domestic political spectrum?

Given that these amounts are not in absolute terms that large ($10M is a relative bargain), if the right played its cards properly (see my post "Room at the Top"), couldn't it also fund significant book deals and speaking fees (purely for historical and artistic purposes), for politicians (even liberal ones) at a key stage in their careers?

Liberals often say that most American welfare recipients are white, but this has not been true for at least 30 years. This a difficult statistic to verify because welfare is handled mostly at the state and county level, but WikiAnswers gives a 2006 estimate that is in line with others I've seen:

Based on the 2006 TOTAL population of each respective race in the United States, it is: 5.27% white* (5.27% of the white population is on welfare)

27.78% black* (27.78% of the black population is on welfare)

11.47% Hispanic* ** (11.47% of the Hispanic population is on welfare)

Another way to look at this data is based on the total number of people who receive welfare. It is:

39% white 11,661,000 of 29,900,000 recipients

38% black 11,362,000 of 29,900,000

17% Hispanic 5,083,000 of 29,900,000

All such statistical comparisons I've seen are close to this one. I've seen at least one taken around 2000 that showed the total number of black recipients slightly exceeding the number of whites. All estimates tend to show an increasing number of Hispanics over the years. No estimate I've ever seen put white welfare cases above 42%.

11.47% Hispanic* ** (11.47% of the Hispanic population is on welfare)...Hispanic 5,083,000 of 29,900,000"

Ah, so you're dividing the number of Hispanics on welfare by the USA's total Hispanic population of ~45 million. But at least 9 million of them are ineligible for welfare (and by welfare you mean TANF, I presume). 5 million/36 million = 14% of eligible Hispanics on welfare.

Obama is acutely aware that the economic divide between the winners and losers is increasing every day and that the coalition that brought him into office is primarily made up of the latter and not the former. This is on reason why he had to go after health insurance first. Unlike manufactured products which can be built by calibans in India or China, health care must be provided by highly skilled local labor which means it is more inflationary than almost everything else we consume. As such, it is the one thing that cannot be paid for with scrip or funny money and with health insurance rates going up 15% a year, blacks will be priced out of the market first. Better to make it a “right” now while there is some semblance of everybody paying their fair share rather than what it will be increasingly perceived of as , which is a welfare entitlement provided by and paid for by whites and Asians and consumed by blacks and Hispanics.

Why does Gerrymandering increase democracy? Because Gerrymandering increases the unity of the voting districts. A more unified voting district can better unite and discover their common interest.-Tiffy

Not exactly, Tiff. Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect. By packing opposition voters into districts they will already win (increasing excess votes for winners) and by cracking the remainder among districts where they are moved into the minority (increasing votes for eventual losers), the number of wasted votes among the opposition can be maximized. Similarly, with supporters holding narrow margins in the unpacked districts, the number of wasted votes among supporters is minimised.

I think Gerrymandering is great. More Gerrymandering will take america in the direction of the other western nations, all of which have parliamentarian democracies, not federalist pseudo-democracies.-Tiffy again

Most Western democracies use a form of proportional representation, a system of voting designed to minimize wasted votes. It is the complete opposite of the plurality/first-past-the-post system used in the US in all districts whether they're gerrymandered or not.

In a way, Nixon was playing it like Bismarck did in the 19th century. Bismarck was a true blue conservative and didn't like change BUT he saw that fundamental changes were irreversible in all facets of society and economy, so he had to 'make the best of it' by working with liberals and even by making major concessions

A public man is best judged by his actions in the real world, not so-called intentions and especially not publicly advertised political beliefs.

By that measure, Nixon was very much a liberal by his ground-breaking acts: creating the EPA, creating legal victim status for Hispanics, pushing AA, opening China, bringing Vietnam to an end via bombing and negotiations, abandoning limited government and meaningful fiscal restraints, etc.

For those who think Nixon was a conservative, what comparable major conservative acts did Nixon accomplish or push for while in office?

The comparison with Bismark fails completely. Bismark used short-term cryptic public acts to defeat the liberals and setup a long-term authoritative conservative government. Nixon's major acts were ground-breakingly liberal and pushed America towards a much stronger and permanent liberal grounding long-term.

"Why does Gerrymandering increase democracy? Because Gerrymandering increases the unity of the voting districts. A more unified voting district can better unite and discover their common interest."

And then YOU wrote:"Not exactly, Tiff. Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect. "----------------

And I reply: effective for WHOM? For the political party and the polticians that run them. But my post was about how gerrymandering helps the voters. I couldn't care less about how it helps the politicians and their sycophant. It seems you want to see everything from the vantage point of those in power. What a surprise to see someone on the internet take that point of view. It has surely never ever ever happened before. In fact, to be honest, those who post on the internet are almost completely in thrall to the propganda output by the powers that be. You just be another farm animal.

How about addressing my actual point instead of trying to make my post fit into the propaganda scheme that your masters grew in your brain?

I wrote:"I think Gerrymandering is great. More Gerrymandering will take america in the direction of the other western nations, all of which have parliamentarian democracies, not federalist pseudo-democracies.-Tiffy again "

you wrote:"Most Western democracies use a form of proportional representation, a system of voting designed to minimize wasted votes. "

Do tell!

you wrote:"It is the complete opposite of the plurality/first-past-the-post system used in the US in all districts whether they're gerrymandered or not."

I reply:So what? Every single other western nation uses parliamentarian style of govt. One would think that out of all these genius internet posters that post so prolifically that one or two of you would twig to this fact and ask "why?". But I have yet to see it.

Well, as I said, you may now return to your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical discussion.

"Why does Gerrymandering increase democracy? Because Gerrymandering increases the unity of the voting districts. A more unified voting district can better unite and discover their common interest."

And then YOU wrote:" Gerrymandering is effective because of the wasted vote effect. "I reply: effective for WHOM? For the political party and the polticians that run them. But my post was about how gerrymandering helps the voters. I couldn't care less about how it helps the politicians and their sycophant. It seems you want to see everything from the vantage point of those in power.

How about addressing my actual point instead of trying to make my post fit into the propaganda scheme that your masters grew in your brain?

I wrote:"I think Gerrymandering is great. More Gerrymandering will take america in the direction of the other western nations, all of which have parliamentarian democracies, not federalist pseudo-democracies.-Tiffy again "

you wrote:"Most Western democracies use a form of proportional representation, a system of voting designed to minimize wasted votes. "

Do tell!

you wrote:"It is the complete opposite of the plurality/first-past-the-post system used in the US in all districts whether they're gerrymandered or not."

I reply:So what? Every single other western nation uses parliamentarian style of govt. One would think that out of all these genius internet posters that post so prolifically that one or two of you would twig to this fact and ask "why?". But I have yet to see it.

Well, as I said, you may now return to your regularly scheduled pseudopolitical discussion.

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